


Working Alone

by PeniG



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angels, Animal Death, Boredom, Early Days, Earth the First Few Centuries, Loneliness, Other, Pre-Slash, Tricksters, like very long pre-slash, nothing graphic i promise, probably human death off stage, rough justice, smiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: New Guardian Angels start crossing Crawly's path. They are violent and stupid, or stubborn and standoffish; they are boring; they are in every way inferior to Aziraphale; and worst of all - they refuse to tell him what's happened to his accustomed Adversary!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Aziraphale
Comments: 16
Kudos: 102





	Working Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This should be readable independently, but fits in between "Eden" (in which Aziraphale's pinion is explained) and "How a Good Time Ended" in *The Akashic Records.* The account of the token system of proto-currency is derived from my memories of reading about it in a library book some years ago and should not be held to any high standard of truth.
> 
> Camels get a bum rap. They are, when properly handled, lovely and useful animals, and their fleece is incredibly soft. I am very sorry about what I allow to happen to Apple Blossom.

The first Crawly knew that more Guardians had been assigned to Earth was when he led his laden melanistic camel, Apple Blossom, into a herders’ camp imbued with angelic radiance. The youngster he followed led him to the patriarch, where they found him listening to a tall brown angel with dark hair and eyes. This angel stopped at Crawly's approach, looking affronted. “What,” it demanded, loudly enough that everyone going about their evening business in the vicinity turned their heads to look, “are _you_ doing here?”

Crawly sized him up with one eye as he bowed to the patriarch. Bit of a shock when he’d been expecting Aziraphale - not a pleasant one, either, as he’d been looking forward to a few days of genial give-and-take tempting and thwarting by day, drinking and arguing by night. He’d have to start from square one with this angel, whose aura seemed familiar, but who was not the significant person here at the moment. “Good fortune attend your tents,” he said to the patriarch. “I am called Crawly, a trader from a distant land, come to beg water and shelter and a chance to show my wares, for I have traveled many miles today.”

The patriarch bowed in return. “Welcome, stranger, and accept the hospitality of our humble camp. If you -“

“You can’t do that,” said the new angel.

Everyone within earshot stopped what they were doing to stare at this guest interrupting and dictating to his host. Even the matriarch spinning on the rug in front of the tent, who probably had only put down her distaff to eat, sleep, and reproduce for the past thirty years, froze with the spindle swinging at the end of its drop. Apple Blossom hacked up a new cud and shifted her shoulders, resigned to putting off her unloading until the little bipeds finished flapping their gums at each other. 

The patriarch’s face flushed darker. “I’m sorry, I seem to have something wrong with my ears,” he said. “I thought I heard you tell me I couldn’t extend hospitality in my own camp.”

“Not to _this_ thing,” said the angel.

Crawly’s guts writhed with secondhand embarrassment. “Look, you - Sturiel! Yes, Sturiel, right? We worked on the Antares system together. Obviously, you’re new around here, don’t know the rules yet, but yes, he absolutely _can,_ it’s _his camp_ , y’see, he’s the patriarch? Authority, hospitality, rules of society, manners, any of this ringing any bells?” 

Sturiel looked blank and angry. “Shut your mouth, foul fiend, before I shut it for you!”

Crawly winced and talked faster, addressing the patriarch this time. “Yeah, he’s a bit of a tosser, most of his folks are that way. Don’t be too hard on him. We’re from warring clans back in our country, all the rules are different there, he doesn’t know any better -“

“Why are you listening to this, this - can’t you see his _eyes_? He’s a demon!”

“Oi, I’m trying to get you out of the hole you’re digging! Put down the shovel!” Apple Blossom nudged his shoulder, reminding him that camel suppertime was upon them.

“He is a traveler,” said the patriarch, recovering his composure enough to speak to Sturiel, “who has claimed and received my hospitality. To you also I have extended hospitality. Two guests who are under hospitality must set their differences aside until they leave the camp that shelters them. It dismays me that this is not so in your country.”

“Dismays me too,” agreed Crawly. “Your country has _great_ rules.”

 _“I_ am here for your good and _he_ is here to deceive and harm you,” declared Sturiel. 

_“I’m_ here to trade and barter and have supper, which, by the way, smells delicious.” The child who was supposed to be turning the spit with the sheep on it (and wanted the juiciest bit for herself) started up again, before the meat scorched too badly. Crawly winked at her - sharp kid. Much sharper than Sturiel, who he remembered having a hard time with new work methods back in the before-days-began. “Got some really good stuff here. Wait’ll you see what they’re doing with copper in Sumer - it’ll blow you away.”

“I warned you, demon!” Sturiel reached into the adjacent plane and pulled out a flaming spear, poised to smite.

The next few seconds were far too busy to process. Crawly ducked and dodged, lightning cracked, the spear went straight into Apple Blossom’s chest, blood spurted, Apple Blossom screamed and screamed, the air stank of ozone and burning camel, and everyone in camp with anything resembling a weapon converged on the spot. The matriarch got in the first blow with her distaff while the patriarch was drawing his knife. The child who dove in to take Sturiel down at the knees seized a living body which landed as a corpse. Crawly barely noticed the astonished roar and rush of Sturiel’s departure for Heaven, occupied in beating out the sacred fire with his robe while poor Apple Blossom screamed and thrashed and screamed and bled and screamed and burned - he’d seen Aziraphale heal wounds like this, _how_ had he done it ? - He knew how to block the pain but she needed _more_ -

The patriarch and matriarch yanked him away from Apple Blossom while a young man darted in to finish her off fast. “Shh, shhh,” said the matriarch, pulling his head into her bosom so he couldn’t see - but he could still hear, and camel screams echoed round and round inside his head. “He took her in the heart. There’s no saving her. A quick death is all we can do for her.”

“She’s a _good_ camel!” Crawly wailed. “She’s the _best_ camel I ever had!” Docile to him, hostile to anyone else who tried to handle her, able to carry huge amounts of bulky merchandise, with a smooth mile-eating stride that allowed him to fall asleep on her back if he got bored, ruled any camel society she entered by force of personality - he’d _never_ find another like her! “I can’t believe he _smote my camel_!”

“He was _trying_ to do it to _you_ ,” said the patriarch. “Count your blessings. You must wash and drink, and then you’ll feel better. And we can certainly spare a camel to make amends for this violation of courtesy in the midst of our tents.” He made the sign against evil toward the body that had held Sturiel, then took Crawly by the hand and drew him into the biggest tent. “What have you done to offend a demon? For that is what he must have been, to draw a spear from thin air in defiance of the laws of nature and of hospitality.”

“Um,” said Crawly, and found he was shaking. Apple Blossom was dead, an old workmate had tried to smite him, a group of humans had assaulted an angel not so much on his behalf as on behalf of the customs that governed their society, and _where was Aziraphale?_ Hadn’t he _explained_ about the Law of Hospitality and all that to the other angels? What was Sturiel even _doing_ here?

Poor Apple Blossom!

No fewer than four adult women came to wash his feet and blood-splashed bits, take away his bloody garments and bring him fresh ones, provide water and fermented milk to drink, and generally help him get a grip on himself. The matriarch directed operations, taking up her spindle and distaff again, while the patriarch went back outside to supervise the disposal of Apple Blossom’s and Sturiel’s bodies and the offloading of Crawly’s load of trade goods.

Another demon might have felt pretty good about the situation. He knew that. He could see the shape of the distortions he’d make to the story for the delectation of Hell, how he’d tempted an angel into breaking the Law and bringing down on itself the wrath of the humans while he dodged neatly out of the way. But he only felt weak and sick, because - the angels weren’t going to sit back and let that slide, were they? 

Aziraphale would understand what had happened. Maybe he’d be able to talk them down from retaliating. If he’d been here it wouldn’t have happened at all, though. So _where was he?_

The patriarch and his sons came in to wash their own bloody bits. “I wish you hadn’t killed him,” said Crawly.

The patriarch hugged him and patted his back. “I know it _looked_ like a man you knew, but it _wasn’t._ It was a _demon_. I don’t know if demons have been walking disguised as men in your country or if this one took the guise of someone known to you due to some history of your own, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is, it’s _gone_ and you’re _safe.”_

“We wouldn’t have killed it, if it had been a man,” one of the sons assured him. “Not outright. We’d have sent a man away to take his chances with the wild beasts. But once someone’s pulled a flaming spear from mid-air, they’ve shown themselves outside the Law.”

Crawly considered sorting out the misconceptions there, but even the thought was exhausting. “How do you know _I’m_ not a demon?” He asked. “Sturiel said I was. And my eyes - well - ”

“We have seen strange eyes before,” said the matriarch, spindle whirring as it transformed camel hair into thread. “My only daughter, the child of my age, has one brown eye and one amber. That sort of thing is disturbing till you get used to it, but you get used to it quickly.” She paid out more fiber. Crawly recalled a number of humans who had suffered for their looks, over the years; but none of them had been a long-desired and much-loved baby girl of parents with many sheep, goats, and camels, which no doubt made a difference. “Besides, even if you _were_ a demon - _you_ didn’t order us about or urge us to break the Laws or try to strike anyone down with an impossible weapon. If you behave within the Law, the Law will protect you. No exceptions.”

“The Law won’t protect you if,” if Sturiel’s bosses take exception; if Aziraphale isn’t around to talk angry angels around to seeing things in the proper light, “if the demon’s friends take offense.”

“Then we will deal with that as it comes to us, if it comes to us,” said the patriarch. “Will you not show us your wares while supper is preparing?”

So he opened up his packs and went into his spiel. He usually loved this part. Human faces lit up when they saw new and pretty and clever things; they tried on ornaments and fingered cloth and tried out gadgets and disputed the qualities of different toolstones; they listened, rapt, as he spun stories about the origin of each novelty. It was normally a productive time, too, Envy and Vanity and Avarice rising to the bait and needing only a little tempting from him to sink their claws into a soul. But his heart wasn’t in it, and if Aziraphale had been there to counter his efforts with encouragement to Generosity, Modesty, and Thrift the angel would have had it all his own way.

Except that if Aziraphale had been there, Crawly would’ve still been cheerful and sharp as he’d been when he rode up to the camp, and they’d be having a fine time going head-to-head. He wouldn’t be oppressed with anticipation of Heaven’s reaction to humans discorporating one of their own.

 _Maybe nothing will happen,_ he told himself.

The wind kicked up and clouds started to gather during supper. People slipped away to batten things down, but he could have told them it was no use. And it wasn’t.

He tried standing up to the storm and yelling at the angel he could barely see flickering in the clouds (purple lightning; must be Gabriel) that it was _Sturiel’s own fault_ , but all that did was draw lightning which he only escaped by turning snake and burrowing down through the dimensional folds to Hell. At least he managed to evade everyone there and come up again in the Asian subcontinent, where they appreciated snakes, before anyone of higher rank noticed him and demanded a report. He kept himself busy and undisturbed for several years, only sometimes (when he was alone in the darkest part of the night, listening to the humans breathe) wondering whether anyone else had survived that smiting, and why Aziraphale hadn't been there. 

The next time he sensed an angel nearby he approached more cautiously, analyzing the aura (less bright than Aziraphale’s; less permeated with sweet delight; once he started paying attention it was obvious) and managed to avoid disaster. After that he developed procedures for dealing with strange angels without endangering the humans. After all, he couldn’t, as he explained when he grumbled to other demons about it, corrupt anybody if the angels came in and killed all his marks! So he’d take care to observe without making personal contact until he could be sure of a one-on-one situation. His attempts at conversation didn’t ever go well, and he got good at evading flaming weapons. Sometimes he only escaped down to Hell in the nick of time, but three times out of four he humiliated his opponent first, and he always came right back up again to try again, and again, and again, until he got the upper hand. And though he wasn’t much of a fighter, when he knew the terrain and conditions, and pitted his brains against a single angels’ brawn, he _would,_ eventually, pull off an unambiguous victory. The angels were generally so overconfident of the advantage that flight and flaming weapons gave them that he could even discorporate them - or, more accurately, trick them into discorporating themselves. Amusing once in awhile; but it quickly palled compared to the intellectual challenge of dealing with humans and a reasonable angel at the same time.

Crawly often wondered where Aziraphale’d got to. Not that there should be any real mystery about lack of contact. When Aziraphale was the only Guardian on earth he’d been busy as a fluffy little blue-eyed bee, yanked constantly between Heaven and Earth and set down anywhere Heaven thought it needed someone on the ground for more than a brief blessing or smiting or miracle delivery. Crawly, still riding the wave of executive approval for his triumph in Eden, had a lot of freedom to follow his whims all over the burgeoning world as God seeded it with humans. Whether the two of them ran into each other in the course of their duties was random at best. Now there were more Guardians, which would logically make it less likely that any randomly encountered angel would be Aziraphale. But had the new Guardians started appearing because Gabriel had finally gotten more personnel, or because Something Terrible had happened to Aziraphale? 

If anybody’d managed to destroy an angel, the word would be all over Hell, and it wasn’t, so nobody had. At worst he might have been discorporated. Angels didn’t build or borrow their bodies like demons did, so maybe, probably, Heaven had Rules about issuing them. Maybe they had a mandatory waiting period before a new body would be provided, or maybe they were chronically behind in manufacturing them, or, or - Aziraphale _liked_ Earth, he _understood_ it, he was _good_ at humans, they wouldn’t just _not_ let him come back!

Not that Crawly _worried_ about it or anything. Only, the new ones were all either blowhards, or pedants, or both, and they bored him. Dealing with them was a waste of his valuable time. If angels were going to interfere with his operations, they should have the common courtesy to do it properly, opposing his subtle Temptations to Sin with their own Encouragements to Virtue on a level playing field, and maybe totting up points and splitting a winejar after all the humans were safely asleep.

He was in a northern hunting-gathering-horticulturalist village when he finally encountered another angel who wasn’t a complete nob. He’d lured most of a village to put off working on a storehouse in order to bet on frog races (Sloth and Avarice - a double whammy), kept them all up late having fun, and when none of them could stay awake any more he’d wandered off and fallen asleep himself trying to identify which stars he’d worked on back in the before-days-began. He’d woken up late and headed back toward the village, stopping as soon as he detected the angel working on the storehouse slightly faster than a human could, pricking the villagers on to compete with it and each other to prove that no stranger could outbuild them, even with hangovers - a trick worthy of Aziraphale, and Crawly’s heart leaped; but it wasn’t him. The body was all wrong, tall and broad-shouldered with a shiny bare head, none of which proved anything, really; but the aura wasn’t right, either. He smelled no sweet delight on his tongue, only fizzy nervousness and tentative satisfaction, a desire to do this job right. The villagers called the angel Ygal. Crawly settled down to watch quietly all day.

When night fell and the villagers went to their well-earned rest, the new angel made the rounds of their shelters, apparently scattering good dreams and clearing out the remnants of the hangovers. Crawly sensed the moment that Ygal detected him; saw it hesitate, square its shoulders, and scan the area, presumably looking for more demonic auras. After a quick blessing circuit of the village, it settled down crosslegged atop the kiln in the open space nearly in the center of the irregular clump of houses, silhouette relaxed. It looked ready to watch all night, rather than seeking Crawly out for a confrontation. This boded well for its being moderately intelligent and well-informed. Potentially approachable - but if they couldn’t keep the conversation civil (and after the last half dozen tries he wasn’t hopeful) they’d be in the middle of a population cluster, and Crawly really didn’t like it when living human bodies, as opposed to their immortal souls, were caught in his crossfire. He could go away, but it stuck in his craw and - what if this angel was more like Aziraphale than like Sturiel? 

What if it knew where Aziraphale was? 

Crawly was a loner - any demon who knew of him (and they all did) could have vouched for that. But that didn’t mean he didn’t get lonely. 

Or bored. And boredom was so - boring.

Humans were interesting, but they were temporary. He’d get to know one, have to move on, and when he returned to the area the familiar face was on his old acquaintance’s grandchild and saw him without recognition. And he couldn’t talk to them, could he? Not about the things that mattered, the long wandering complex thoughts that grew in his head as he roamed Earth and Hell, observing and interacting and experimenting. The thoughts none of the demons of his acquaintance wanted to hear. Only Aziraphale thought the same sort of thoughts, could hold conversations in which ideas were traded and wrangled over till they generated brand new trains of thought neither party could have begun on their own, had they brooded over their ideas for a thousand years. Crawly had a dozen Aziraphale-confounding arguments going stale in his head, plus all the new things he’d seen and done that he wanted to exchange for news of what the angel’d seen and done. That they wouldn’t agree about any of it meant that they’d be able to dispute for hours that would otherwise be blank. If that angel sitting on the kiln had been Aziraphale, they’d be half a winejar and three arguments in right now, instead of tracking each other (if you could call it tracking on his part, when he was the only one moving, circling the village) from a few hundred yards away all night. It wasn’t tenable and it was _boring!_

So he summoned owls to fly into the village and drop live mice on Ygal’s head.

The response was disappointing, barely a response at all. Ygal seemed to be catching the mice, saying a few words to them, and releasing them, after the first not even startling when they landed. _Hmph._ He sent them more rapidly, instructing the owls to swoop lower, coming in from several directions at once. When that had no noticeable effect, he gathered up a bunch of moths to flutter around the angel’s head. He considered also collecting mosquitoes from the nearby wetlands, but that seemed too much of an escalation and besides they would also have harassed the humans, whom he had no interest in disturbing. When the moths didn’t do the trick either, he started in with the weird lights and noises, enough to tickle an angel’s sharp ears and eyes without waking up the humans. He circled the village, his path constricting like a snake coiling, nearer with each round, and Ygal shifted itself on the kiln, a quarter arc at a time, to keep its face turned toward him - or at least, toward where Crawly’s illusions led it to expect him to be.

Finally, in the coldest darkest lonesomest hour of the night, Crawly concluded that this angel was at least coolheaded enough not to endanger the humans with hasty anti-demonic action, and made his way through the shadows to stand behind the kiln and say into it’s ear: “Y’know, Ygal, mosst angels would’ve chased me halfway to the mountains by now.”

It startled satisfactorily at that, sending the moths that had gathered on its head and shoulders spurting into the air. The mouse it was petting leaped to the ground and scurried away. It recoiled into a defensive posture but did not pull out a weapon. “I think that would be foolish of them, if that’s true,” it said, masking its fear reasonably well. “My job is to guard humans, not to chase demons all across the countryside. What if you had a confederate waiting to come in as soon as the coast was clear? Or you led me into a trap? No, much better to stay here and mind my own business.”

Crawly let go of the owls, which rained down upon the village snatching up the mice, and of the moths, which flew away. The eerie noises and lights faded to nothing. He grinned, showing some fang and eyes yellow to the rim, glowing faintly as if with hellfire (an effect Aziraphale admired). “No confederatesss,” he said. “Mosst demons are as sstupid as mosst angels. I’d rather work alone.”

Ygal’s dark eyes flickered, taking in details, and it swallowed. “The Serpent of Eden, I presume?”

“Oh, good, you’ve heard of me.”

 _“Everyone’_ s heard of you! Aziraphale told us all about you.”

Crawly clamped down on the surge of pleasure this gave him and kept his voice smooth. _“Did_ he now? What did he tell you?”

“That you’re wily and easily bored.” Ygal paused to leave room for Crawly’s bark of laughter. “And that you’re not violent unless provoked, though his judgement about that’s being questioned in the wake of the last few angels you encountered.”

“The last few angels I encountered were sstupid as sstumps and exstremely provoking,” Crawly protested. “It’s almosst enough to make me want Aziraphale back - at least _he_ used to work ssmart, keep me on my toes. Or ribss, as the case might be. Where is the old bugger these days? Haven’t run into him for awhile.”

“That’s not your business,” snapped the angel. “In fact, I think your business in these parts is done, so you might as well push along.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Crawly leaned casually against the kiln’s warm side. “What’ve you been up to around here, then? I see you made good progress on that building of theirs. But you’re not doing them any favors, doing their work for them.”

“I wasn’t doing their - no, wait, you don’t get to tell me how to do my job.”

“Why not? I’m a bit of an exspert in demonic wiles and dealing with humans, not to put mysself forward. Could give you good advicce. Anyhow, I’m off the clock. No usse wiling when they’re ssound assleep. Sso you might as well relaxs, too.”

“Oh, that’s likely, isn’t it, with the Serpent of Eden breathing down my neck?”

“What, am I in your sspace bubble? We don’t have those in Hell, you know - not enough room.” Crawly took a long step back and spread his arms wide, donning the innocent look that always made Aziraphale snort. “Far enough, or should I back off ssome more?”

“A little more, please. A hundred leagues or so will do.”

“Nope, that’ss not giving space, that’ss retreating and it’ss not happening. I can’t let an angel wander in and ousst me. I’ve got my job to do ssame as you do, but there’s no reason we can’t be reassonable about it.”

“What do you call reasonable?”

“They’re awake, we do our things - I tempt, you encourage, we each try to thwart the other, no violencce but otherwise no holdss barred. They’re assleep, we can keep each other company. I know where there’s a nicce bilberry patch, jusst getting ripe.”

“I don’t eat except when necessary to pass as human,” said Ygal; and then, out of nowhere: “I don’t even _like_ honeycakes!”

All right, _that_ was weird. “That’ss fine, since I don’t have any,” said Crawly. “Sso, what, you want to ssit on the kiln all night and have a sstaring contest? ‘Cause I’d win that.”

“I know you would, so no. You may go off the clock, but I don’t, and whatever you get up to, I’ll be here to thwart it.”

“You’ll wear yoursself out that way.”

“That’s my look out.”

“Ugh, you’re sso _boring!”_

“I’m not making you hang about talking to me.”

Crawly sighed. “All right, all right, have it your way. Ssee you around.”

“I expect so, yes.”

So Crawly wandered a bit, thinking, then planning, then implementing; and so it was that, over the next three days, the villagers kept running up against eerie evidence that the stranger who’d started the frog races and disappeared had been murdered and that the stranger who’d been so helpful about building the storehouse, and was now so oddly reluctant to continue his journey, turned into a giant snake each night; that he had eaten the first stranger, and was far too dangerous either to confront or to allow to stay. Ygal became more and more bewildered and upset as the villagers grew colder and colder to it, and was less and less able to manufacture excuses to stay, until they finally put it on a donkey with a pack of provisions and sent it off, the local wisewoman organizing the villagers to surround the place with more or less effective magical wards to keep it from returning. 

Crawly waited for it on the road, plaiting grass into a basket. “Ss’no fun being thwarted without a chancce to thwart back, is it?” He asked, as Ygal glared down at him from the donkey’s back. “Should’ve taken the deal.”

“At least none of them is any closer to Hell,” said Ygal.

“Sure of that, are you? Sseemss to me there’s a fair amount of Wrath coming off the placce now. Got a lot of fear in it - nothing fuels Wrath like fear. Might be harder for the nexst traveler to get a welcome, don’t you think?”

“Why don’t you go back and follow up on your victory, then? Turn the place into a real den of depravity? No, wait, if they see you aren’t murdered they might realize they were unjust to me, and feel remorse, and undo all your hard work!”

“Ss’all right, plenty more villages in the world, and between uss this one’s plenty corrupted. The humans can take it from here.” Crawly grinned at him toothily. “Oh, buck up! You win ssome, you lose ssome, and it’ss not like Heaven’s going to peel your sskin off your back for doing lesss Good than you intended. If you take all your ssetbacks hard you’ll burn out before you’re down here a ccentury.” He put the finishing touch on his basket, and snapped his fingers to fill it up with wine, meat, berries, flatbreads, grain suitable for a donkey, and some nice woollen napkins. He held it out. “Have a gift bassket as a condolencce prize. Not that you aren’t ahead by a donkey, but I think you’ll find that’s their oldesst, crabbiesst one, and I don’t believe those are the niccest provisions they had, either.”

“Regardless, they need them more than I do.” Ygal dismounted, had a short conversation with the donkey, then waved its hand and sent the creature trotting back toward the village, fully laden. “Perhaps they’ll think I’ve been eaten by the snake, and reconsider their decisions.”

“More likely to think you turned back into the ssnake and the donkey was too tough to eat. Humans don’t reconssider their deccisions if they can help it.”

“Well, it’s in their hands now.” Ygal shrugged, bringing its wings out to full spread, their snowy whiteness reflecting the sun. “I’d bid you farewell, but I prefer to be neither insincere nor rude.”

“I, on the other hand, am having a hard time choosing which one to be.” Crawly waved a languid hand. “Let’ss go with inssinccere. Farewell, Ygal, have a _wonderful_ time making thiss report, and give my regards to Aziraphale if you ssee him.”

Ygal launched into the sky, where he soon vanished into Heaven in a shimmer of light. Crawly sighed and popped open the wineskin. Miracled wine didn’t have the depth of flavor of the real thing, but it was better than having nothing to drink off his disappointment with.

He ran into Ygal again once or twice, and a few other angels of the same stripe after that. They were better than the blowhard angels, anyhow; more professional. Almost _too_ professional. Some were cleverer than others, and one or two presented him with a real challenge, and they all reacted when he inquired about Aziraphale; but they wouldn’t eat or drink or gamble or even play an ordinary human game with him, and they wouldn’t tell him _where_ Aziraphale was or what he was _doing_ that was more important than thwarting Crawly; so he thwarted _them_ as hard as he could, tempted people to sin right under their noses, and pranked them till they left the field to him.

It was all most unsatisfactory, and he didn’t like it.

His mental arguments with Aziraphale became gradually less amusing and more acrimonious. Not that he thought about the missing angel constantly - only when he didn’t have anything more urgent to think about. Some days he felt hurt and some days he felt resigned and some days he worked himself up into being angry, for all the good any of it did him. Yeah, sure, angels were all Enemies, but he and Aziraphale had, he’d _thought_ , a sound professional enmity full of mutual respect. 

The issue, after all, was Free Will. Crawly’s job was to tempt the humans to utilize their Free Will _in defiance_ of their Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus proving that the human design was flawed and Lucifer’s faction had been justified in rejecting the high status God wanted for them. Aziraphale’s job was to encourage humans to utilize their Free Will _informed by_ their Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus demonstrating that the design was sound - and he had not failed to acknowledge Crawly’s own role in creating the testing environment. Crawly’d thought that they _both_ enjoyed the competition and the chance to connect with someone else with both an up close and a long view of Earth and humanity. That Aziraphale _liked_ the occasional night off swapping stories and defending positions and gossiping about the latest use of humanity’s Creativity - which Crawly’d had no hesitation in acknowledging was an excellent design innovation. Heaven bless it all, he _knew_ the angel liked all that! His enjoyment suffused his radiance with a smell and substance and savor that _couldn’t_ be mistaken. Aziraphale _loved_ it down here. So _where was he?_

Crawly was doing his peddler shtick, but without a beast of burden because horses were afraid of him and donkeys could outstubborn him and no camel could compete with the memory of Apple Blossom, when the ladder of sunbeams struck through the cumulonimbus a mile or so ahead, off the road to Ur. He stopped to glare and swallow the flutter in his throat. Aziraphale could only get back and forth to Heaven on a ladder, because of his pinion, but he wasn’t the only one who used them, by any means. Any angel who wanted to come and go without giving the humans an eyeful or burning power to make the transition between spheres used sunbeam ladders. Besides, sometimes a sunbeam was only a sunbeam - 

But it _was_ him this time, it _was_ , Crawly _knew,_ by some quality of the shift in air pressure in his back teeth, in the taste of the breeze and the smell of the light. He walked faster, senses reaching outward - no humans, only grazing livestock - adjusted the straps of his pack so they’d remain secure without his arms, and slithered into snake form, striking cross country faster than his wonky feet could carry him, planning his greeting. It needed to be _devastating_ , something that would _sting_ and make the angel feel bad for deserting Crawly - _no,_ to let him know that he hadn’t been missed at all - _no_ -

_Oh, hi, angel, long time no see._

_**Where** the Heaven have you been?_

_Nice of you to condescend to come down here again._

_Where the **Heaven** have you been?_

_What, **you** again? I thought I was **rid** of you._

_Where the Heaven have **you** been?_

Aziraphale sat under a fig tree, his pristine white robes protected by a rug, his knees drawn up for his chin to rest on and his hands to clasp, awash in a radiance brighter and sweeter than any other angel Crawly’d ever encountered. He was skin hungry, which Crawly knew he shouldn’t try to do anything about, and wanting company. He also wanted to eat, but ripe figs dangled untasted above his head. Subdued, then, needing to be tempted into filling his own wants, if anybody cared about that. Crawly morphed into his human male aspect, swaggered up, and cast himself carelessly into the grass beside him. “Hullo, Aziraphale,” he said, voice unexpectedly soft and husky in his throat. “Replaced your sword yet?”

“Hullo, Crawly.” Aziraphale turned his head - a wasp soared off his cheek to crawl across the plump dark surface of the nearest fig - and smiled. Something unraveled in Crawly’s chest, and something else tightened, because the smile wasn’t quite right, even though it crinkled the corners of his eyes and rounded his cheeks and flashed some teeth. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, well, a ladder comes down more or less right in my path, I have to go see who’s come meddling this time, don’t I? Surprised to see you again. I thought you must be done with us.”

“Oh, no, no, _that_ was never in prospect,” said Aziraphale. “Didn’t anybody tell you? Gabriel finally got the Guardian Services properly organized, and as the only field agent with experience of living among humans I was assigned to train the first cohorts. Great honor and all that.”

“Hmph. That first batch wasn’t anything to be proud of. Why the _heaven_ didn’t you tell Sturiel about the Law of Hospitality before you let it come down here?”

“Sturiel was _not_ my student!” Aziraphale sat up straight, lashes and fingers fluttering. “I am so, _so_ sorry about that! They wanted angels on the ground to cover for us while I trained the first classes, and for some reason they took volunteers from the Host, whose one idea of thwarting was - well!” Bright blue eyes flicked from Crawly’s face, down the length of him, and back again. “You seem to have rebuilt your body good as new, but it can’t have been pleasant, and I’m _so sorry_ it smote you!”

“Oh, it didn’t smite _me._ ” Crawly shrugged off his pack and started rummaging. “I’d be less angry about that! No, he missed me and smote _my camel_! Best camel I _ever_ had! Apple Blossom, her name was. Completely melanistic, had no use for anybody on two legs but me, fastest thing on the road, gait like swinging in a hammock. What _else_ did that camel-murdering pile of muck lie to Heaven about?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’m sure,” said Aziraphale. “I wasn’t at its debriefing, but the business caused a tremendous hoo-hah and I had to testify as an expert witness at a hearing, trying to explain the Law of Hospitality to a bunch of seraphim, but most of the debate centered around establishing groundrules for smiting humans and I never heard direct testimony about what actually happened. As I understand, though -“

By the time he’d recounted the official version and Crawly had corrected it, the wine and bread and cheese Crawly’d dug out of his pack were arrayed on his most beautiful length of fabric and Aziraphale had added a dozen perfectly ripe figs to the spread, gently shooing the wasps away. The angel then had plenty of time to savor his way through a quarter of the loaf and cheese, and refresh his figs and wine a couple of times, before Crawly finished ranting about the rank stupidity of the Host volunteers and describing the traps he’d laid for them. “Oh, dear,” Aziraphale commiserated, refilling Crawly’s cup. “How vexing for you! I hope once my students started coming to Earth the situation improved.”

“I had to waste less time on the physical comedy, at least,” Crawly conceded. “It’ll be better now you’re back. Funny thing, you happening to return so close to where I happened to be.”

“Not _so_ much. I was assigned to the Fertile Crescent because my students have been having tremendous difficulties here for the past decade or so.”

“Since about the time I decided to hang about here, in fact.”

 _“Yes_ , speaking of odd coincidences! So when they were calculating where to put the ladder I detected your aura in this vicinity and suggested that they set me down near you so I could get straight to work.”

Crawly couldn’t repress his grin. “Couldn’t wait to thwart me again, could you?”

“Well, my students don’t seem to be up to it! I’m afraid you’ve been cruelly hard on them, my dear.”

“Hmph. It’s not _my_ fault they’re not as clever as you. I’m not saying you did a bad job teaching, or anything. A few of them show potential. But they - ugh! How could you pass _so many angels_ who can’t maintain a civil conversation? Or relax for five minutes? Or accept a single blessed drink, or play a round of Go while the humans sleep, or - or _anything!_ When we weren’t actually surrounded by humans they wouldn’t eat with me or pass the time of day or do anything that didn’t involve directly thwarting me. When I didn’t force the issue through a human they all cut me dead, like I wasn’t even _there!”_

Aziraphale sighed. “Oh, dear. I _did_ emphasize to them the importance of flexibility of behavior on Earth. And I tried to convey the idea, throughout, that, that you - that demons in general and you in particular - that that that the occasional nonhostile interaction could be _fruitful._ But, well, the truth is, I had to, to edit my classes several times to meet management’s expectations and there are things that Gabriel simply doesn’t want said. Not, not specifically and directly, you know. So I had to _imply_ things and hope for the best. Which wasn’t very satisfactory, I’m afraid! And I wanted - I was able to order some class materials from the Akashic Records, but Gabriel wouldn’t let me go back and forth to Heaven to make searches for myself. I had to submit a list of what I wanted, from which he’d select those he considered significant and send somebody else to run them. So I never had a chance to show my classes any specific incidents of, of how best to thwart you. And then their final mission briefings all came direct from Gabriel.”

“Yeah, that’d make anybody tense for awhile, I suppose.” Aziraphale had always been a little more uptight right after he got back from Heaven, and Crowley certainly understood how stressful a briefing from the boss could be.

“But I did _hope_ a few of them might, well, might grasp the principle better than they appear to have done.”

“Not so far.” Crawly emptied the last of the wine from the jar into his cup, and reached into the pack to drag out the other jar in it. He couldn’t carry more than two small jars without a beast of burden, but at least he carried the good stuff, and was able to chill it. “Hang on, you weren’t allowed to go back and forth to Heaven? Where were you holding class?”

Aziraphale spread cheese onto bread. “Eden. It’s sealed off these days, and warded, safe from demonic or human intrusion, but it’s still on Earth, subject to gravity and with limited weather, so it’s a convenient area to train angels in while they accustom themselves to bodies and the material realm. Convenient for those on staff who can fly, as they can go back and forth without ladders, but I - well. It was a certain amount of trouble to ferry me up and down and the students kept me busy in any case.”

“So you haven’t been in Heaven this whole time?”

“Oh, dear me, no! No, it was the old ‘ladder down, ladder up, ladder down,’ first to get me inside the walls and then to bring me here. I barely glimpsed Heaven.” He had the particular expression that meant he could say more on the topic, but chose not to. Better not press him on that score right now and anyway Crawly had more interesting things to ask about.

“Hmph. The other Guardians could at least have told me that! You’d think I was trying to get strategic information out of them, the way they clammed up when I asked where you were! Did _any_ of them carry my regards to you? I sent them several times - sneeringly, of course. As a taunt.”

“Oh! Oh, naturally, how else would you send them?” Aziraphale’s lower face smiled wistfully and his eyes didn’t crinkle. “I haven’t actually _seen_ any of my students since they started field work. I would have liked to, but they report straight to Heaven and apparently haven’t much time for side trips. I’m sure if I’d been at their debriefings they’d have, have passed on your, um, taunts.”

“Yeah, well, you’re back now anyhow, so you’re bound to run into them from time to time. You made quick work of it, if you’ve got enough Guardians trained to cover all the populated areas of Earth in only, what is it, sixty years?”

“Is it sixty? I’ve lost track, with Eden’s chronal oddities. But actually the, the classes will continue for another century at least. Possibly longer, if populations continue to boom.” He chewed a bite of bread, slowly, with diminished zest.

Crawly watched his face, uneasy in his gut. Aziraphale wanted - reassurance? “Taking a break, then? Refreshing your knowledge of rapidly changing human cultures before you go back to teach about them?”

Aziraphale licked his lips more than was necessary to get all the cheese off them. “Not, well, no. No. That _was_ the original plan, I believe, for me to alternate teaching with Guardianship, but as it’s worked out I’ve, I’ve been replaced as teacher and restored to fulltime Guardian work.”

A part of Crawly leaped for joy, but another weighed heavily in him. “Who’ve they got teaching, then?”

“I believe Sandalphon’s taken over till they get the replacement they want. He’s Gabriel’s personal assistant, you see - takes on any job that needs doing till the, the qualified angel comes along - not that Sandalphon isn’t qualified -“

“The Heaven he is! How could he be? How could _anybody_ be? _Nobody_ can match your experience. You - did you _ask_ to be relieved?” Crawly didn’t know, and didn’t care to find out, why this thought warmed him.

“Oh, no. I missed being, being among humans, but teaching was rewarding and my students were all so lovely! Only - well!” He pursed his lips, considering, ate a fig, and made up his mind. “Did you ever meet Gabriel?”

Crawly shrugged. “Sort of? Back in the before-the-days, you know. After star construction stopped, I was a bit loose-endish in Heaven and brushed up against him a couple of times.” When he was hanging around a certain other Archangel, which he _wasn’t_ talking to Aziraphale about, _ever_. “I don’t expect he remembers me. Why?”

“I doubt there would be any indication of this as far back as that. The truth is - some angels - have a, a _thing_ about food. Gross matter, as they put it. They don’t enjoy it, which, all right, nobody likes everything. But I’m afraid Gabriel’s one of those people who, if they don’t like a thing, can’t grasp how useful or pleasant it might be to anybody else. And we had a bit of a, not a _dispute_ exactly -“ His hands, empty of food, began to occupy themselves, clasping and unclasping, twisting in each other’s grasp. “Well. It was like this. My very first class, I knew I’d have to teach them to recognize and eat processed foods, as well as the fruits and nuts and so on readily available in Eden. You remember how it was when you first started interacting with the material plane in a body - all those bewildering sensations bombarding you faster than you could process them. So I decided to make it as easy and pleasant for them as possible and commissioned one of Eden’s caretaker angels to bring honeycakes and buttermilk in from the nearest human settlement.” His hands kept on wringing at the same time that his face brightened at the memory. “I set the honeycakes out at the beginning of the class, intending to introduce them after I’d explained the concept and purpose of tempting - and not one student could leave the honeycakes alone! Even after I _specifically_ asked them to do so, even after they’d _seen_ other students getting all sticky, they couldn’t stop investigating them! I was able to draw a parallel between their response to the honeycakes, and Eve’s response to the apple, and - they _got_ it! Before they ever met a human, that connection between their own experience and human experience was made, quickly and easily and without any of the awkwardness that arises when an inexperienced angel tries to interact with a human for the first time.”

Watching the contrast between the happy eager face and the anxious twisty hands, a memory clicked in Crawly’s head, and he barked a laugh. “Oh! _That’s_ why Ygal said _I don’t even like honeycakes_ when I tempted it to eat with me!”

Aziraphale laughed, too, all bubbly and light. “Oh, poor Ygal! It made such a mess of itself! But love them or hate them, the honeycakes allowed my students to enter into the human point of view at the cost of only a few sticky fingers and quills. And hair, in Ygal’s case.”

“Hair? _What_ hair? It’s been as bald as an egg every time I’ve met it.”

“Yes, well, that first encounter with the messiness of earth was a shock, and has affected its approach to appearances ever since. So anyway, from that point I deliberately structured the introductory lecture around making that connection. It worked beautifully! Or, at least - _I_ thought so.” The light in the face faded, more congruent with the hands now.

“Gabriel didn’t, I take it?” Crawly wished Aziraphale would return to eating, even if it did slow the story down.

“No. No, he didn’t. He approached me on the subject every time I gave the lecture, which I did first thing with each new class, and each time I thought of a new way to explain it to him, and when he went away I’d think he’d finally understood it, but _no_ , every semester he’d come around _again_ and we’d have to start all over. I modified the lecture several times at his suggestion but I - nothing _else_ worked as well as the honeycakes. They were _so_ unfamiliar, you see, and _so_ human, and so, so very _sticky_ , that was the _point_ and Gabriel never, never quite grasped it - and, well, finally he got fed up, I suppose, and now here I am.” He blinked several times, looking down at his hands.

“Yes,” said Crawly, smearing cheese onto the loaf and holding it out to him. “Here you are. Where you can eat honeycakes whenever you want to, pretty much.”

Aziraphale met Crawly’s eyes with his own, looked down at the bread, reached out, and took it without touching him. Not that he didn’t want to. How could an angel who’d been so long among his brethren be _so_ skin hungry? He met Crawly’s eyes again, sighed out a breath, and drew in a fresh lungful that seemed to expand all through him, lighting his face into the true, untrammeled smile Crawly’d been waiting sixty years to see again. “That’s true,” he said. “I will miss my students, a bit, but oh - I’ve missed humans _so much_! What have they been doing while I was gone?”

“Oh, they’ve been busy,” said Crawly. “For one thing, they’re trading up a storm. Goods are crossing continents, and in large amounts, too. But the rich people doing the biggest trades would rather not stand around in the feedlot or the storehouse all day. So they make clay tokens - here, look -“ He dug into a compartment of his pack and pulled out a handful of discs and a clay tablet. “See, this is a token for a bushel of grain - that’s what that symbol means. And this is -“

“A bull!” Aziraphale hummed as he picked it up. “How darling!”

Something skipped in Crawly’s chest, but he breathed himself past it. “Whatever. So, you make a deal to trade 20 cattle for 200 bushels of barley, and you send these tokens down to the feed lot and the storehouse with the accountants, and the person in charge compares the tokens with the stock in hand, makes sure everybody leaves with the right amount of everything. But the really _clever_ bit is, if you give a cobbler a token for a bushel of grain to make a pair of shoes, he can then go to the storehouse and turn in the token and pick up the bushel of grain from whatever source you’re entitled to draw on, whenever it’s handy for him, and _you_ haven’t been hauling grain all over the place.”

“Oh! Yes, I see, that _is_ convenient. What’s this tablet for, then? It seems to have some of the same markings on it.”

“Yeah, this is something people trading between towns are doing - Ur’s huge now, by the way, you won’t recognize it. When they first began using this token system, when a big shipment was sent to another city, the accountant would take all the tokens appropriate to the shipment, seal them up in a clay jar, fire it, and give it to the caravan leader to turn over at the other end. Then the receiver’s accountant would break it open and compare the number of tokens to the actual shipment, and that way it’s a lot harder for somebody along the way to lighten the load or take a calf or two for himself without detection, because the tokens are right there, showing how much was sent. But it’s messy breaking open clay pots all the time, gets potsherds all over the office, so the accountants started marking the pot with the tally of how many tokens had been put in it with a stylus before it was fired. And _then_ -“

Aziraphale swallowed his mouthful of bread and cheese. “Then, they realized that if they marked down the number of tokens they didn’t have to send the actual tokens because the record was already there! Crawly, do you realize what this _means_?” His face shone so bright Crawly thought it might blind him; and yet he couldn’t look away. “Standardized symbolic representations! They’re _so clos_ e to inventing writing!”

“Yeah, thought you’d like that.” Crawly grinned, then proceeded to gloat. Sixty years without a really good gloat - he was overdue. “It’s good for Avarice, too. There’s already people hoarding tokens beyond immediate needs. And last week I met a poor sod who lost half his crop after trading tokens he intended to pay off at harvest, and when they heard he was failing they all descended on him at once, determined to get their amount out of the half that _didn’t_ fail before it was all gone - Wrath and Avarice all over the place! ”

“I’m sure you’ve also known people to give them to those who have nothing to trade for them! You could distribute quite a lot of charity in this way, with relatively little effort.”

“I won’t say that I have or I haven’t, but once you hit town I expect I’ll see an epidemic of it,” Crawly grumbled.

“Perhaps. I’d hate to disappoint your expectations,” said Aziraphal, and wiggled in a way that put everything right in the world.

-30-


End file.
